A translator in Hurd is simply a normal program acting as an object server and participating in the Hurd's distributed virtual file system. It is so-called because it typically exports a file system and thus translates object invocations into calls appropriate for the backing store (e.g., ext2 file system, nfs server, etc.).

Another way of putting it is that it translates from one representation of a data structure into another representation, for example from the on-disk ext2 data layout to a traditional file system hierarchy, or from a XML file to a virtual hierarchical manifestation. This translation can be a bidirectional process, but it need not be.

A translator is usually registered with a specific file system node by using the settrans command.

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